Change width of arrow

Question

This is a MWE of my code:

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes,arrows}


\tikzset{
    myarrow/.style={
        draw,
        fill=black,
        single arrow,
        minimum height=2.5ex,
        line width=1pt,
        single arrow head extend=0.1ex
    }
}

\newcommand{\arrowup}{%
\tikz [baseline=-0.5ex]{\node [myarrow,rotate=90] {};}
}
\newcommand{\arrowdown}{%
\tikz [baseline=-1ex]{\node [myarrow,rotate=-90] {};}
}


\begin{document}

\begin{center}
This is some text.\\
\arrowdown\\
And some more.\\
\arrowup\\
And even more.
\end{center}

\end{document}

which gives me this:

arrows

the line width will only reduce the width of the arrows up to a certain point but no more. I want the arrows to look a little thinner. I'm using PDFLaTeX to compile on Ubuntu 12.10. Cheers.

You have to set inner sep=1pt (or an even smaller value). See http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/13587/how-to-change-the-size-of-nodes — Jake, Feb 20 '13 at 21:13
Thank you, adding that line and fiddling with the rest helped me get the width right. The answer given is pretty much your comment so I'll accept it. Thanks. — Gabriel, Feb 20 '13 at 21:28

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 15 '17 at 13:11

For tweaking an arrow node the TiKz manual lists the following options: single arrow head extend, inner sep= and single arrow head indent. I'd like to add the yscale or xscale options. Playing with these values you may get the desired appearance.

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes,arrows}

\tikzset{
    myarrow/.style={
        draw,
        fill=black,
        single arrow,
        minimum height=2.5ex,
        line width=1pt,
        single arrow head extend=0.1ex
    }
}

\newcommand{\arrowup}{%
\tikz [baseline=-0.5ex]{\node [myarrow,rotate=90, single arrow head extend=2mm,inner sep=.1mm] {};}% or: single arrow head indent=⟨length⟩
}
\newcommand{\arrowdown}{%
\tikz [baseline=-1ex]{\node [myarrow,rotate=-90,  yscale=.5, single arrow head extend=1mm] {};}
}

\begin{document}

\begin{center}
This is some text.\\
\arrowdown\\
And some more.\\
\arrowup\\
And even more.
\end{center}

\end{document}

In this example i especially like the second (down) arrow.

Thank you, the inner sep= line did the trick. Regards. – Gabriel Feb 20 '13 at 21:28 — Gabriel, Feb 20 '13 at 21:28

Change width of arrow

1 Answers1